


When Sally Met Harry

by fandroid1



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Empathy, Gen, Guilt, John Watson Plays the Clarinet, implied Harry/Sally, say YES to complex and imperfect characters, so let's say, turned out pretty platonic, was meant to be Harry/Sally
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:00:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29762772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandroid1/pseuds/fandroid1
Summary: Harry Watson is John's alcoholic, un-functioning sister. Sally Donovan is the shrew he must deal with in crime scenes.Except.Except there's more than that.A closer look into each woman's relationship with John Watson, and with herself.
Kudos: 1





	When Sally Met Harry

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I'm grateful for [mific](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mific/pseuds/mific)'s outstanding beta work!

Harry Watson is waiting for her brother at a police station, Scotland Yard, in fact. She doesn’t need him to bail her out, though it wouldn’t be the first time.   
Ever since they were kids, John had to take responsibility, despite her being the eldest.   
  


They grew up in a house with a drunk, violent father and a mother with more religion than personality. The only thing their parents had in common was their outspoken homophobia, and the only functioning adult in the family was their grandmother. She'd looked after them physically and emotionally, saying “I love you,” and knitting for them (undoubtedly the source of John’s affection for woolly jumpers).  
  
But even that didn't last long enough, not with Harry's luck. Grandma passed away when John was still in primary school. He took over maintaining the house, cooking and cleaning, making his bed every morning and behaving as Grandma had taught them: polite, considerate and modest. It came easier to him—Johnny was naturally easy-going and friendly. Harry was never like that and she couldn’t change, even if it would have made it easier.

Even the physical similarity between them (golden-brown hair, dark blue eyes, compact height) blurred as they grew older: John stabilised into a sturdy solid frame and she was underfed. He preferred a neat army haircut and perfect boy next door looks, while she constantly changed her crazy haircuts, hair colour and piercings. 

Harry was the problematic one, the troublemaker, recalcitrant from her absolute refusal to take any shit. She spoke her mind and asked blunt questions, not caring if it was rude. She got a tattoo of the pride symbol, insisted on being called “Harry” as a protest against binary concepts of gender, and did countless other things that made their father foam at the mouth with rage until she had to leave home.  
Like John, she was bright, but she dropped out of college and couldn’t keep a job. She turned to alcohol, becoming a drunk just like the person she hated most.

Before too long she started to hate herself, too.

By now, John was captain of the rugby team, excelling at school and playing the bloody _clarinet_. He studied medicine and enlisted, becoming a decorated army captain before being discharged on medical grounds, a war hero. He was a saint and she was a train wreck. He was flawless and she was a hopeless mess. 

Even so, Harry worried about him more than about herself. It was ironic considering her problems, but instinctive as the older sister. She'd protected him since she could remember, sometimes despite his protests. She remembered the way he used to say “Harry, _stop_!” and bury his face in his hands when she burst in somewhere to 'rescue' him, or burst _out_ angrily at someone who'd done him an injustice, to her mind. After all, Harry knew that she understood the world better.

John was all about decency and justice, clinging to civilised behaviour as a way of coping with the chaos at home and then the chaos of war, like a stubborn, lonely pilgrim. But Harry knew there'd be times when his stamina and restraint wouldn’t be enough, that battling his inner demons would be worse than any horror in Afghanistan. 

When Harry got the message about her brother’s injury, the first thing she did was pour herself a shot. The second thing was to empty it into the sink. Her hands shook, but no matter how shitty she felt, she knew she couldn’t abandon John. 

She knew she was right when she checked him out of hospital—he'd refused to see her before during his treatment and rehabilitation—and she saw how much he’d aged. The cheerful, athletic young man full of optimism and confidence was gone. His gold-brown hair was faded and laced with grey and his forehead creased with pain and stress. And worst of all: he shrugged her off. Her long-suffering younger brother who'd always accepted her as she was and who'd been there for her, backing up her lies to their parents and caring for her after binges, didn’t even want to stay in touch with her.

Harry didn’t blame him. She knew she'd let him down countless times. She'd missed most of his rugby matches, his graduation (twice), and too many birthdays. Even when she _was_ there, she was often drunk, loudmouthed and embarrassing.   
When John had contacted her to let her know their parents had died (their father was driving drunk, and typically he couldn’t just damage himself, he had to take his wife with him) she knew she should've done more than say a curt “good riddance” and leave him to deal with the funeral arrangements.   
His military service was during one of the most disordered, lost periods of her life, and, quite apart from the geographical distance, she hadn't been there for him—no letters or care packages. During the last six months over there he'd communicated more with Clara than her (sweet, perfect Clara. There hadn’t been a chance for them from the beginning). It was no surprise really that her brother and her ex-wife liked each other and had things in common—they were both kind and generous and had faith in her, but eventually they both gave up. 

Harry wasn't about to give up. She gave John the phone she'd received from Clara, and true, she wanted to get rid of it (expensive gestures of affection always made her uncomfortable as if emphasising her sloppiness, seen in the many scratches on the device), but mostly she wanted to stay in touch with John, and she knew a hand-me-down was the only thing he'd be likely to accept. Looking back, it was maybe a little foolish to give him a reminder of something he was angry about—the collapse of her marriage—but in some ways she'd hoped to evoke his sympathy by using Clara. 

She left in the phone a folder she'd created specifically. It had childhood photographs, a drawing he did for her when he was in kindergarten, and sweet notes he'd left her, innocent and misspelled. John never referred to it and considering his struggles with technology (her brother still typed like he was sitting in front of an ancient, rusty typewriter), he might not even have found it. She couldn't do much more, since he flat out refused to see her and she was still struggling with rehab, but she didn't stop tracking him.   
  


Harry was the first follower of his blog, and somehow it reassured her a bit to find that his flatmate was some sort of crazy genius who dragged him along to crime scenes. It sounded absurd, but Harry knew her brother and the way he was fuelled by adrenaline. Every time their father cut loose, John knew what to do. Every time their mother had one of her hysterical attacks, John calmed her down. Only later, in the quiet house, would his hands shake. She hadn't been surprised when he'd enlisted.

And the truth was, she actually liked this Holmes bloke. He spoke his mind, at least (admittedly _too much_ ), and seemed to fail in adjusting to social norms, something she identified with. He wasn’t easy, for sure, but it seemed John could handle him just fine.

Knowing her brother’s steady level-headedness, she wasn’t surprised by John’s indifference towards Holmes' dramatic outbursts and childish tantrums (described in posts: “The Problem of the Moody Detective” and “A Study in Strops”). His ability to hold firm wasn’t alien to her, either—stubbornness was a quality they shared, even if John used it educationally (“Today Sherlock found out his microscope is gone and won’t be given back until he’s cleared up the goddamned mess he’s made in the kitchen with his last experiments. My condolences to the forensic science community grieving for the delay in cataloguing the 244th type of ash.”) Sometimes it was hard to tell whether John was a former captain or a current nanny (“Sherlock’s violin was confiscated and he got a 45 minute lecture about suitable times for certain types of noise, and other sounds that should be banned even in hell. Coming next: respecting boundaries and personal space.”) 

Harry watched the gradual reappearance of a John who was sure of his place in the world, and this time not just an external show of excellence, but with acceptance and quiet confidence. It was most evident when he finally stopped suppressing his bisexuality (she'd seen how he'd looked at his rugby teammates, even as he constantly assured their father he wasn't gay). She supposes it doesn’t hurt that Sherlock Cheekbones Holmes is bloody stunning.

When she saw John like that, Harry felt something within her settle for the first time, as if up to now she'd been somehow subconsciously tensed to fight for him, too. 

One day John posts a brief update, reporting that Sherlock’s solved another case and he’ll see how much of it he can share after they’re done reporting at the Yard tomorrow. It’s practical and casual, but Harry feels this is her chance. She’d wanted to meet him for a while now once she felt she was able, and then she'd waited for him to be ready, and then she was just afraid. She couldn’t risk polite rejection via text or phone, but also didn’t want to push him too hard by knocking on his door or surprising him outside the clinic. The Yard is a compromise: not an invasion of the privacy of his flat, but with the chance of catching John in a better mood after a successful case than he would be at the end of day's work.

She arrives very early so there won’t be a chance of missing him, and it’s freezing outside so she waits in the lobby and doesn’t take her eyes off the entry door. 

* * *

Despite her reputation, Sally Donovan isn’t actually a mean bitch. 

She's good at her job, bloody professional, and tough as can be expected from a woman working in the police service, dealing with crime daily. But she's loyal to those who’ve earned it, and she really does care about people, about defending justice and civilians’ lives. True, she's treated Sherlock Holmes snidely in the past, but that's because of how he was before John Watson arrived. 

When Lestrade first started consulting Sherlock she wasn’t the only one to raise an eyebrow: the bloke was clearly an addict (a “user”, as he shamelessly pointed out himself), but very few people in the department were prudish enough to rule him out merely for being a junkie. No, it was more about him being a shitty person.

Even the ones with good intentions found themselves retreating quickly. Not only did he appear to be a cold-minded machine who kept everyone at a distance, Holmes spiced his annoying “know-it-all” attitude with constant arrogant corrections of others' mistakes, with everyone a legitimate target for an insult. 

That could have been swallowed; after all he _was_ a genius, and everybody knew that often came with some social limitations (a “high functioning sociopath” as Holmes described himself, or “an utter cock”, as Watson later put it). 

Even his lack of empathy and seeming inability to feel guilt could’ve been explained as him “lacking moral sense” (Greg’s subtler phrasing). But what really roused Sally’s hostility was his macabre interest in and sick enthusiasm for what he called “The Game”—meaning, crimes, and the more esoteric and horrid the merrier he was about it. 

Greg could claim all he wanted that “he just can’t grasp societal norms”, but Sally saw Holmes using his personal charm to get information, and it was clear that the manipulative bastard grasped more than enough to easily manoeuvre people, and didn't have many inhibitions to stop him.  
  


So unlike Anderson who was merely jealous, Sally’s aggressiveness truly did come from seeing Holmes as a menace (though admittedly, his nasty remarks about her sex life didn’t help). She was willing to bear him being around as long as he helped capture criminals, but she was determined to keep a watchful eye and make her mistrust clear, hoping it would deter him. 

When Holmes first showed up with a "colleague", Sally was disturbed, to put it mildly. Her first impression was of a man limping slightly, almost dragged along after Holmes, which gave her the feel he was a little unstable. For a moment Sally was wondering if the freak had widened his antisocial ways to include physical and mental abuse.

She pitied the man, and when she saw him turn to leave (his _colleague_ having abandoned him there, how predictable), she tried to warn him. That was when she noticed the way he listened: not dulled by some kind of disability or brainwashing, but also not immediately accepting, his thoughtful expression suggesting he intended to consider everything and wouldn't give her words more weight than his own conclusions. It was enough to make it clear he was confident, reserved, and clearly polite and pleasant, even if—naturally—still confused by the whole situation. 

And although Sally would never have believed someone would be willing, let alone cope with sharing a creepy-as-fuck apartment with creepy-as-fuck Sherlock Holmes, it soon enough turned out that this Watson could handle him better than everyone else combined. He reminded her a bit of Greg, who always managed to handle Holmes with relative equanimity and keep him in check, but Greg _needed_ Holmes. Watson didn’t. He seemed to _want_ to spend time with him, which Sally didn’t think had ever happened before with Holmes, his time in the womb included. 

  
Watson didn’t even look like he was suffering. Of course, there were the times Holmes did or said something especially jerk-ish, causing even Watson to sigh and bury his face in his hands, only to lift them up to the ceiling with “Lord, help me, ‘cause this man is a complete arsehole” written on his face, and then to stab Holmes with a glare of “I can’t believe I’m hanging out with you”, or alternatively, "I’ll throttle you as soon as we’re back in the flat”. But even these shows of disapproval were the sort you'd see with any normal pair of friends. And in fact, the majority of the time, Watson was consistently compassionate and patient with what was called in the department “all that sociopath crap”, not once judging or mocking Holmes. 

Above all was the astonishing, shocking fact that John Watson behaved as though he genuinely considered Holmes a friend, valued him as such, and didn’t hesitate to express it. It was so irritating to hear his honest praise when Holmes started with his deductions. The rest of them were used to it, lest to say _sick_ _of it_. Holmes knew exactly what he was doing, and it wasn't like the braggart needed an ego boost. It wasn't that John was ingratiating—he just spoke his mind, and of course he was, to tell the truth, objectively correct. Sherlock Holmes’s abilities _were_ amazing, brilliant, incredible—but no one else bothered mentioning it. In some ways it felt like John was the only one sure enough of himself not to be threatened by Holmes’s prodigious intellect. He treated him as an equal, reacting so straightforwardly that he didn’t hesitate to reprimand Holmes when he was being an arse, which happened with at least the same frequency as the compliments. 

Miracle of miracles was, of course, the fact that Holmes, the arrogant son of a bitch who dismissed everybody else, _acknowledged_ Watson’s feedback and _reacted_ to it. He more or less blushed with pleasure every time John spouted the most standard compliment, and even bothered faking embarrassment when John admonished him, as if it wasn’t clear to everyone that the entire concept of shame was wasted on him. The way Holmes visibly preened at the admiration was different from his usual smugness, too. It was almost like Holmes was showing off _for_ John, in a way that reminded Sally of a kid looking up expectantly for his Mum’s praise every time he did something special. But she shook that overly sympathetic image out of her head. 

Then came the case with the kids and she couldn’t stay silent anymore. How was it not clear to everyone that he'd done it? _No one_ could've solved a case like that, and it was obvious that Holmes was relying too much on everybody's willingness to accept his abilities as some kind of supernatural phenomenon and allowing himself to get sloppy. Once she saw how he operated, she could see how his former cases would all collapse too, like a line of dominoes. It made her sick. 

When they came to arrest him the second time with a warrant (Greg was so naive to think the psycho would come willingly), she stood in front of John with the certainty of her first warning to him coming true. Only this time John wasn't even remotely confused; he gazed steadily back at her making it clear he didn’t even bother considering her words, that he actually barely saw her, and wasn't terribly worried, as if all this was just a temporary inconvenience.

After Holmes jumped, everything changed. The evidence piled up piece by piece in his support, though it was too late.

Anderson left her, his wife as well, and became more of a weirdo than Holmes, especially considering Holmes had at least shaved, and didn’t look like a homeless person strung out drugs (well, they did share the drugs part, but that tosser Holmes had even wore a suit at _home_ ). She supposed it was Anderson’s way of coping, and in fact, “I Believe in Sherlock Holmes” was a great success, compared to the last movement he'd started, “Pick on the Freak”.

Sally, for one, didn’t want to lie to herself to take comfort in the thought that her mistakes could be undone. She asked to be moved to another department. She could no longer look Lestrade in the eye anyway (though he never blamed her outright. Hell, he seemed to blame himself most of all). 

In some ways that was the hardest part, knowing she'd lost Greg, who had always been fair to her even when others gave her shit because she was a woman.

There was guilt, of course, knowing she'd been wrong and there'd been a high price for that mistake. Knowing she'd caused the opposite outcome to what she'd signed up for. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that if she had another chance she would’ve done it all over again, because that was how she'd interpreted the events at the time and no one who had met Sherlock could deny her suspicions were well-founded.  
Plus, Holmes was dead, regardless of her feelings and beyond anything she could do.

But John was alive, painfully so. She saw him occasionally—he testified in the trial held to clear Holmes’s name, and his photograph was in the papers, and worst of all, the video showing the gathering in front of Barts, with John’s voice saying “let me come through, he’s my friend”, sounding so shattered she'd flinched.  
  
It was the first time she really realised the depth of their relationship, and the shock that Holmes had even been capable of such a relationship. She'd known him before John did, but then she knew John too, and she should’ve given his judgment more weight.

So now Holmes was dead because of her, but somehow she felt more guilt towards the one who was still alive.

Then Holmes came back. Her first reaction was relief (if you skipped the initial impulse to push him off a building again as punishment for such a deception), but despite her flaws, Sally was an honest person. She knew that the fact Holmes didn’t actually die didn’t take away any of the sorrow John had suffered, and her guilt about it.  
  
She figures Holmes _does_ have feelings, despite what they’d thought (she can’t stop herself from glancing at him and John when they’re at the Yard, or miss the way Holmes looks a lot more _human_ somehow, possibly because he’s smiling at John or leaning for a quick kiss. A kiss. Holmes. Yeah, it took a while to process). Only it seems like he's mostly focussed on John, and still doesn’t ascribe much importance to others, for good or bad. Apologising to him would be like saying sorry to a wall, a particularly condescending one, too. It doesn’t exempt her from trying, but the truth is Sally thinks a lot more about John.

She tries not to, in fact, because she hasn't managed to gather her courage to face him and it just makes her feel worse. But it looks like she doesn't have a choice the day she arrives at work and her eyes fall on a woman sitting in the lobby, staring right at her.

Well, not _at_ her, Sally finds after she takes a few steps and the woman’s eyes stay locked on the entry door, but it doesn’t make her presence any less unsettling. 

She looks like a female version of John Watson, minus a few pounds and plus a hint of rebelliousness. Besides her features, there’s something in her relentless gaze, in her air of squaring her shoulders to carry a burden, which is pure _John_. But further observation reveals the essential difference: this woman doesn’t look like someone who always does the right thing, but like someone who never stops failing but is ready to bear the consequences. 

Sally’s aware, of course, that John Watson errs like any other human being, but something about him constantly radiates prim and proper integrity and conscience, in a way that sometimes makes Sally want to scream at the thought of admitting her mistake to him. 

In contrast, the face in front of her seems to say "I fucked up, but I'm still trying". The combination of these attributes, the similarity to John and but also to herself, leaves Sally paralysed for a few lingering moments.

Eventually she can’t resist the urge, and approaches. “Hello.” 

The woman glances at her and Sally sees the lines in her face resemble John’s, too, telling of misfortunes and worries, but something about them is subtler, more feminine. “Hello.”

“Can I… help you with something?” Sally’s not sure how to handle this conversation, but she's trying. 

“No, thank you. I’m waiting for someone. My brother.” 

“John Watson?” Sally doesn’t really mean to ask, but can’t help it. 

Those blue eyes are aimed at her this time. “How’d you know?”

“I… know him.” It’s not quite an explanation, but better than nothing. “I’m Sergeant Donovan.” She’s not as comfortable introducing herself as she used to be, but it seems necessary.

"Oh. John… mentioned you.” 

Undoubtedly. John, honourable as always, would never have named anyone specifically when he described the shabby treatment Sherlock received from the team at the Yard, but he'd have said who was on the team, so people would put two and two together. 

Yet she finds no judgment in the woman's face. Unlike John, who seemed to expect his own high morals of those around him, his sister looks like she knows how much she messed up, and doesn’t rush to judgement about others. 

“I’m Harry,” she says. Their eyes meet in a way that makes a handshake irrelevant. 

“So… you arranged to meet here, at the Yard?” It’s a pretty odd place for a family get together, even considering John’s interest in crime. 

Harry hesitates, self-conscious, but after a second she seems to drop it and speaks honestly. “No. I mean, we haven't exactly agreed to meet. I kind of… just came here.” Perhaps Harry sees Sally's not about to judge others either, because she soldiers on: “I screwed up our relationship and I want to say sorry, and that I’m sick of making excuses. I want my brother back.”

She says it with such honesty and strength that Sally feels shame at not having been able to say it herself. 

It’s not exactly that she wants John _back_ , because they were never more than politely remote ever since she warned him about Holmes and he flat out chose to ignore her. But even with the grudge she felt towards him about that, Sally could tell he was a good man. She wondered about his liking for Holmes, but it didn’t stop her valuing him as a person—he was always professional, kind and sensitive. He really did remind her of Greg, especially with the common denominator of their baffling affection for the capricious consulting detective. In a world where men mostly treated her as an opponent or a bedpartner, friendship was scarce. 

She isn’t sure how to explain any of it, or even if she should, so she simply says, “Do you mind if I wait with you?”

Their eyes meet again, and once more the kind of understanding that doesn’t need words passes between them. 

They wait together for a while. 


End file.
